Pamela V. Brown

Write Path, an L.L.C.  

Photo by Ron Kosen / Photo-Spectrum

   Kauai Business Report November 2004

An Olympic Undertaking:

Trujillo successfully combines business sense with love of surfing

By Pamela V. Brown

After living in the same Southern California zip code for his whole life, Troy Trujillo's love of surfing, combined with his entrepreneurship, finally lured him out of his original comfort zone and into a new one here on Kauai.

The owner of Olympic Café in Kapaa, Trujillo was running a successful sandwich shop and a coffee house with a used bookstore in the Redondo Beach area five years ago, when he came to Kauai on a surf trip for the first time. He'd visited Maui and Oahu a few times but when he spotted the empty location that for many years had housed the original Olympic Café in downtown Kapaa, the wheels in his head started spinning.

Olympic Cafe owner Troy Trujillo prepares to seat customers in his new location

Photo by Pam Brown     

"I said, 'Uh, well, we're in the restaurant business in Hawaii.' She was so mad," he said.

Surprised, yes, and not thrilled to be returning to a small town atmosphere after having grown up in one, but supportive nonetheless, "I told him he was crazy but it's what he wanted to do," she said.

Though Trujillo's decision-making process can appear to be impulsive, he's actually got the Midas touch for successful businesses. Olympic Café, named after the original restaurant - "because everyone at the health and building departments knew it was the old Olympic Café building" - moved across the street to the historic Hee Fat building this summer.

In the past 12 years there was a succession of restaurants that opened and closed including Jimmy's Grill (never reopened after Hurricane Iniki), Big Wave Brewery and Pancho & Lefty's.

The dismal restaurant history of his new location didn't deter Trujillo at all. "I'm so cocky, I don't care," he said. "I never doubt myself," he said, only half joking. "I'd always wanted this place." So when his rent tripled at the original location, it was time to investigate other options.

Originally negotiations began slowly. The property manager wouldn't release much information over the telephone, probably to weed out lookee-loos. But when Trujillo flew to Oahu to meet with the rental manager in person, "We were done in 30 minutes," and he came home with a 10-year lease.

Since moving, Trujillo said the restaurant is almost always busy, and service is usually quick. Residents run into acquaintances there frequently and it's become a convenient meeting place for friends and business people.

Trujillo's simple formula for success has proven solid: fresh food, large portions, pleasant service. Indeed, a few of Olympic Café's most popular items - salads and burritos - are so large that couples often share them.

Olympic Cafe chef grills some fresh ahi to top one of the restaurant's huge salads.

Photo by Pam Brown    

"The atmosphere, the ambience of the new place more reflects our food quality," Trujillo said. "At the old place, people would say they'd heard the food was good but they weren't expecting it to be," based on how it looked, he said.

One of his secrets to offering a menu with nearly 100 lunch choices that range from an avocado and brie melt appetizer, a blackened chicken wrap, kalua pig sandwich, fish tacos and panini sandwiches, is to use ingredients that can be used in many dishes.

"Everything we use, we can also use in other dishes, so we can order large quantities, get good rotation and don't have any spoilage," Trujillo said. "We deliberately plan the menu that way."

Though Trujillo is at the restaurant daily, always hustling and always cheerful, whether helping to bus tables or seat customers, he said he doesn't like to work.

"I could retire now and still there wouldn't be enough time in the day to do what I want to do," he said. "I'd surf every day. I'd take my dog to the beach. I'd play my instruments. I'd take my boys (ages 5 and 1) to the beach every day." A literature major in college, Trujillo said he'd be happy to read books all day.

But instead of slowing down, Trujillo is ramping up plans for a mini empire. He's brought his former restaurant manager from California with an eye toward expansion. He envisions possibly five more similar restaurants in the next three years, across the state.

"If the right place came up, we'd open up a sports bar type of thing," he said. "I actually have a location in mind on Kauai," he said with a smile and a wink.

The one thing he won't do again is bake his own bakery goods. One of the reasons he opened his sandwich shop in Southern California was to have a place to make his own baked goods for his coffee house/used bookstore, and in the process, save thousands of dollars per month that he'd been spending buying pastries from an outside source.

That was one of Trujillo's few poor business decisions.

"It was such a nightmare. I wasn't a baker. I didn't know how to make donuts," he said, laughing. "If someone says the word 'doughnut' to Kim, ugh. Never again. I'll never eat a doughnut for the rest of my life."

For now, he'll stick with what has been working well - the Olympic Café recipe.

"I'm not a romantic about food," he said. After someone eats at Olympic Café, "I want them to be happy with it, to say it was good and fresh and that they thought it was a good value."

Contact Information:

Pamela V. Brown

(808) 651-3533 cell

(808) 821-1027 fax

pam@writepath.net

"Individuality of expression is the beginning and end of all art."             --- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Proverbs in Prose

© Copyright 2004 Write Path, an L.L.C. and Pamela V. Brown  

All material, pictures, concepts, intellectual property and rights reserved. 

© Copyright 2004 Magical Concepts §©ª¨